Sri Lanka tells UN it is acting to curb torture

Sri Lankan officials have told a U.N. human rights panel that the country's government is taking measures to curb acts of torture by security forces.

A delegation led by Sri Lanka government legal adviser Mohan Pieris has told the U.N. Committee Against Torture that the South Asian nation struggled with decades of terrorism at the hands of the now defeated separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.

But Pieris told the Geneva-based panel Tuesday that the Sri Lanka's government agrees "110 percent" that there must be no tolerance for torture.

The U.N. panel grilled Sri Lanka over allegations of ill treatment by police, harassment of lawyers and journalists, secret detention centers, deaths in custody and the disappearance of 5,000 people in the country.